the man who saw everything by deborah levy

Contested memories are scattered throughout the book. Though Saul seems intent on telling his story with candor, he is constantly reframing the past, coloring his own recollections by omissions both intentional and accidental. He loves deeply, but wields his love, throwing his lovers’ lives off course with his self-centered recklessness. Saul, in his mother’s pearls and blue eyeliner, is not uncaring. In Eastern Germany, where tins of pineapple are coveted, blue jeans a rarity, privacy non-existent, and surveillance rampant, Saul remains defiantly Western and inconsiderate. Saul may be the man who saw everything, but he is unwilling to acknowledge the truths in front of him. This may sound like dense reading, but The Man Who Saw Everything is graceful and lean, with Levy’s silvery language cutting right to the point, even when her characters can’t seem to. Drawing on The Beatles, Socialism, the enduring traumas of being Jewish in Germany, and the convoluted relationship between artist and muse, Levy weaves an impressive novel that sweeps and jumps across decades. While Saul may be addled and his memory faulty, Levy’s writing is clear and affecting. To be any less opaque would spoil the plot and Deborah Levy’s craftsmanship. For the first half of the novel, these frequent time slips are perplexing, but clarity comes in a poignant reveal. Dazed and out of sync with the present, he confuses German with English, receives phone calls from other decades, slips Beatles lyrics into his recollections, and finds himself able to recall information from the future: the Berlin Wall will fall, he will one day grow three different types of tomatoes in a garden he doesn’t yet own. As Saul recounts the events of the days, weeks, and years following the accident, it becomes apparent the car knocked something loose within him. Body scraped, brain rattled, it’s unclear how much damage has been done, but while his aches and bruises linger, life goes on. It’s 1988 and Saul Adler is hit by a car while crossing Abbey Road.

The Man Who Saw Everything begins with an accident.

The man who saw everything by deborah levy